A Battle of Healers – The TF2 Medic VS The TFC Medic
Let us be frank here: The Medic we all love dearly is hugely different from the healing class in many, many other games. There are few places where the most important person on your team is the person healing you and your team and keeping everyone alive by making health bars go up instead of go down. So I decided to have a think about this. How would our Medic do fighting against other healers?
Before we begin, a clarification. The Team Fortress 2 Medic was designed with teamwork in mind. He’s almost helpless on his own. That being said, I’ve decided to judge this in two ways: a solo Medic and a Medic with a team of sorts. Today, Medic’s enemy is his Team Fortress Classic predecessor, the Medic. Or TFC Medic, so we can compare them more easily.
Healing
Both Medics heal and both Medics fix problems like being on fire and hallucinations. But Classic Medic heals these things a bit faster than Medic, almost instantly bringing someone back to full health. The Medi Gun on the other hand just stops things from getting worse. The downside to the Medkit is that you’ve got to hit your target. Medi Guns can just lock on.
Both the Medkit and the Medi Gun can overheal, but the Medi Gun’s overheal is much, much quicker, especially if healing ramp up (or critical heals, if you wish) are currently in effect. Medkit overheal is applied with every hit, one hit giving 5 extra health. This is called adrenalising.
As both Medic would agree, the healing isn’t as rewarding as the healing. Both types of healing have different side effects and abilities. The Medkit’s secondary ability comes into effect when you hit an enemy with it. Enemies hit will get an infection and will lose health over time unless healed by a friendly Medic. What’s scarier is the fact that the infected can spread this to team mates by contact. In contrast to this, the Medi Guns all have various effects, with Stock giving you 8 seconds of Ubercharge for a minimum of 40 seconds of healing. That doesn’t seem as fun, but remember, to infect an enemy, you need to be in melee range, and the enemy has all sorts of nasty weapons.
Neither Medic has the ability to heal himself, but the TF2 Medic has regenerating health to help him recover from some wounds. He also has more health, with 150. TFC Medics only have 90 health.
Combat
I’m going to be honest here, but the TF2 Medic loses big time unless working with team mates. The TF2 Medic has two damaging weapons: a melee weapon (we all know how risky that is) and either a syringe gun or the Crusader’s Crossbow, all of which don’t do great damage. What does the TFC Medic have? Everything. As well as the grenades that come standard with all TFC classes, Medics have TWO shotguns: a single barreled one and a double barreled one; and the Super Nail Gun. The Super Nail Gun is a Syringe Gun on enough steroids to kill a herd of elephants. Also, that double barreled shotgun lacks damage fall off. Eep.
That’s not all the TFC Medic has. The TFC Medic is one of the most mobile classes around. In fact, he’s so good, he might as well be a Scout. Both Medics may have the same movement speed, 107%, but the TFC Medic can bunnyhop. What’s worse is that he also has concussion grenades. Not ONLY does the TFC Medic have two hitscan shotguns and an overdosing Nail Gun which tears through sentries, he’s also got the ability to be as mobile as a Sticky Jumper Demoman. A TFC Medic can fly into a base and come out again seconds later, carrying the flag.
Overall
An easy victory for the TFC Medic. While the TF2 Medic may have the upper hand when doing his job with a team, the TFC Medic doesn’t need anyone. His huge amount of firepower and mobility means he doesn’t need team mates to go and get that flag.